Dangers of binge drinking before pregnancy

By now everyone in the civilized world knows you shouldn’t drink alcohol, let alone binge-drink, while pregnant. But new research out of Rutgers University raises the abstention bar even higher. Scientists there have determined that mothers who binge drink before they become pregnant may be more likely to have children with high blood sugar and other changes in glucose function that increase their risk of developing diabetes as adults.

You may be startled to find out that among alcohol users 18 to 44 years old, 15 percent of non-pregnant women and 1.4 percent of pregnant women report that they binge drank in the past month, according to a 2012 phone survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Binge drinking is defined here as the equivalent of four or more drinks in about two hours.

The scientists gave female rats a diet containing 6.7 percent alcohol. This raised their blood alcohol levels to the equivalent of binge drinking humans. The alcohol was then removed from the rats' diet, and they were bred 3 weeks later, equal to several months in humans. A control group of rats did not receive alcohol before conception.

When the adult offspring of the rats from both groups were compared, the researchers learned that the offspring of rats exposed to alcohol before conception had several signs of abnormal glucose homeostasis. This included increased blood glucose levels, decreased insulin levels in the blood and pancreatic tissue, reduced glucagon levels in the blood while being increased in pancreatic tissue, and raised blood levels of leptin. In short, the rats whose moms’ blood alcohol levels were kept at binge-drinker levels were borderline diabetics.

"These findings suggest that [the effects of] a mother's alcohol misuse before conception may be passed on to her offspring," said Ali Al-Yasari, one of the study's authors. "These changes could have lifelong effects on the offspring's glucose homeostasis and possibly increase their susceptibility to diabetes."

The research was presented Sunday at the Endocrine Society's 99th annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.